Cops: No requests from Realtors accused of throwing dead animals on neighbor's property

A lawyer representing Haverford Realtors Andrea and Jonathan Straub announced the delay of a Tuesday morning press conference in which he planned to respond to disorderly conduct charges filed against the couple. He claimed Lower Merion police have not responded to his request to obtain a copy of the video which police allegedly said links his clients to incidents of knocking down “for sale” signs and throwing dead animals on a neighbor’s property.

Police officials, however, say they have not heard of any requests from this lawyer, defamation attorney George Bochetto, other than through media reports.

“I have no record of this second attorney contacting us at all,” Lower Merion police Superintendent Michael McGrath said Tuesday. “I have seen nothing as of yesterday afternoon other than what he is putting in the newspaper.”

Still, according to the statement sent out Monday to the media, the attorneys for the Straubs say they have sent multiple written requests and a subpoena to get what they are looking for.

“We implore Lower Merion Township police to provide this basic information immediately so that the public can finally see what we already know: there is no truth to these outrageous allegations and the Straubs have been wrongly vilified,” the email sent Monday concludes.

McGrath reiterated that he had no knowledge of a subpoena.

Bochetto could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

According to McGrath, the department will handle this case just as it would handle any other citation case and that the attorneys involved know how to properly handle any pretrial procedures.

“We’re not doing this any different than in any other case,” McGrath said.

The allegations date back to the afternoon of June 20 when police cited Andrea and Jonathan Straub of Booth Lane in Haverford with disorderly conduct and harassment after a caretaker at a neighbor’s house showed video surveillance taken of the property that purportedly showed “for sale” signs being knocked over and dead mice and a snake being placed on the neighbor’s property.

In the initial report, police said, the complainant, who is also the caretaker of the property, reported that the owner of the home had her house up for sale for the past couple of weeks. A caretaker was watching the property because the owner had been in the hospital. At one point the caretaker began advising the owner that someone was knocking over the “for sale” sign and removing flyers from the box. When it first happened, he thought it was weather-related, but he installed security cameras on the property after a pattern emerged.

Police said that was when the caretaker noticed their neighbors knocking over the signs. Police also learned at that time that the neighbors, Andrea and Jonathan Straub, were also selling their property.

The caretaker told police that he confronted the Straubs and that the Straubs admitted to him that they knocked down the signs “because they were tacky.”

Police then reported that officers also viewed the video and could see the Straubs coming over to the neighbor’s property and leaving the dead animals. That was when police issued both Andrea and Jonathan Straub citations for disorderly conduct and harassment.

The story was then reported through various media outlets throughout the second half of the week.

On July 3, an email was sent to media announcing that defamation attorney Bochetto had been retained by Jonathan and Andrea Straub after reporting that she had been terminated by Prudential Fox & Roach. The email announcement singled out CBS3’s news report on the incident as “instantaneous villification (sic) of the Straubs.”

In his email sent out July 4, it was announced that a press conference would be held at Bochetto’s Locust Street office July 9 to refute the claims made against the Straubs.But on Monday, a second email was sent out announcing that the attorneys were canceling that press conference.

“We are extremely dismayed that the Lower Merion Police Department still has not released any requested information in this matter, including its police report and the grainy video which unnamed Lower Merion law enforcement officials are citing as the linchpin of their case against the Straubs,” read a portion of the emailed statement.

The Straubs have said through other attorneys that they would fight the charges in court. As of Tuesday, no court date had been set.

On the specifics of any evidence, McGrath declined to go into further detail other than stating, “We will present this case in court.”